Motorola Moto E 2nd Generation 4G/LTE Budget Smartphone Review

Moto E 2nd generation is a budget smartphone from Motorola that comes both in 3G and 4G/LTE network support variants. The Moto E 2nd-gen has improved specifications over its predecessor Moto E, that too for a reasonable price.

The 4G/LTE variant of the smartphone was launched at 7,999 INR in the Indian market, but you can get it for around 6,499 INR from Snapdeal and Amazon. I am reviewing the 4G/LTE variant of Moto E 2nd-gen, let’s check out if the smartphone is worth the price or not.

Design & Build

Starting with the look and feel, it has an almost same sturdy design like 1st-gen Moto E. Having a clean chassis on the left side, Moto E kept a textured power button, volume rockers on the right side, featuring 3.5mm audio jack at the top and USB port at the bottom.

At the front bezel has speaker grill also acts as an earpiece, accompanied by a VGA camera. It lacks in LED notification light. Moving to the back of the phone, Motorola finger dimple logo is just below the 5MP rear shooter with a secondary microphone.

The whole side bumper is removable. Underneath the bumper, there are slots for SIM1, SIM2, and microSD card. Well, there is an option to change surrounded plastic band. It is available in different colors on Flipkart. Back is matte finish and quite prone to smudges. Though the build is tough but it is pretty much visible that Moto E has made a compromise on build quality to keep the price low.

It is 5.2mm at the thinnest point and 12.3mm at the thickest point, the device weighs at 145 grams. Slightly chunky I would say. The curvy body makes perfect grip and doesn’t slip out of your hand quickly. It comes with a black and white base colors with removable Motorola band.

Display: 4.5-inch qHD

Moto E sports a 4.5-inch 540×960 qHD display with a pixel density of 245 ppi, which is better than the 4.3-inch display of 1st generation Moto E. It offers vibrant colors and excellent viewing angles, but it struggles when used in sunlight.

Thick bezel makes 64.3% screen to body ratio. The display is well protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and has capacitive touch buttons.

Performance: Snapdragon 200 Quad-Core with 1GB RAM

The 2nd Gen Moto E is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 200 processor with Adreno 360 GPU. Performance is good, and the device handles multitasking quite well, even with one gig of RAM. Mostly games that I played were smooth with decent graphics and felt no leg. But faced occasional frame drops when tried few graphic intensive games.

Regarding storage, the Moto E has on-boarded 8GB internal storage, out of which around 4.96 is available for users. It supports up to 32GB microSD card if needed.

Software: Android 5.0.2 Lollipop upgradable to Marshmallow

Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop out of the box. There is nothing much to mention anything specific since it has got stock android but with few additional apps such as Migrate; which helps you transfer your data to a new smartphone.

Moto Assist, which is an assistance app and Moto Alert which I found quite useful as it lets you share your location with your contacts that you have added. You can alert your contacts that you need help. These additions are genuinely useful, especially for such an affordable handset.

Camera: 5MP Rear & VGA Front

Talking about the camera, 5MP rear shooter comes with autofocus and f 2.2 aperture. For control focus & exposure, drag the bracket anywhere to set focus. You do get few options also such as HDR mode, which was ok when tried, panorama mode and a quick capture feature. Twist your wrist twice quickly to launch the camera at any time, even in lock mode.

Images taken in daylight were clear, indoor shots were bright, but I could see grains. The camera lacks flash so just forget to shoot in the night. Low light shots were full of noise and grains, may be due to lack of flash. Moto E features VGA camera on the front. So, it’s a noticeable upgrade as the 1st Gen Moto E didn’t even had a front camera. Not the best camera for selfies yet comes handy for video chat.

Despite enhancement, a VGA camera left me disappointed as you can get at least 2MP camera within the similar price range. The camera can record 720p HD Video at 30 fps. Well, quality looks just average. Not impressive!

Regarding audio quality, the right positioning of the speaker made it loud enough. However, the bundled earphones performed just average.

Battery: 2390 mAh

With a 2390 mAh battery you get more than a day’s battery life on moderate usage, that includes calling, chat, gaming, 3G usage, watching videos on YouTube and a little music playback. You can enable battery saver mode to stay juiced long in critical times. It offers good battery backup.

Connectivity front, though there is no NFC, it features Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802 b/g/n and GPS. As the name itself says, it is dual sim 4G LTE enabled device. It seems the main reasons for the Moto E upgrade was to include 4G LTE connectivity only.

It also has an accelerometer, ambient light and proximity sensor but no compass, so maps don’t auto-rotate.

The phone does come with water repellent coating that makes it water resistant not waterproof, so don’t get confused as it is resistant to some spills and showers only.

Pros:

Improved Performance

Pure stock Android experience

Battery Life

Cons:

Dull display as it is tough to read outdoors. Could have been HD display.

Poor Camera

The Verdict

[ps_prices]

Moto E 2nd Gen has come up with few good enhancements at an affordable price. It is a cracking choice if you desire a good looking, compact and tough build with good performance. One should check out this option from Motorola.

But display and camera remain a disappointment for me. In my opinion Moto E 4G is certainly not the only budget smartphone in this segment as it is getting tough competition from Lenovo, Xiaomi’s Redmi 2 and Yu Yunique, which offers better specs, be it be the camera, processor or display that too in the almost similar price tag.

Motorola Moto E 4G/LTE Video Review

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Design & Build

7

Display

7

Performance

8

Camera

6

Battery

7

Overall Features

9

Price

8

SUMMARY

Moto E 2nd Gen has come up with few good enhancements at an affordable price. It is a cracking choice if you desire a good looking, compact and tough build with good performance.

3 COMMENTS

Got one for my young daughter…and as a kid she drops it everyday all day. After 4 months not a scratch on the gorilla glass. Got a 32g micro sd card for it and put over 300 spongebob episodes on it. Videos on youtube also claim thats it waterproof. Does need a flash, but couldnt be happier over this phone. Wish my phone was scratch and waterproof!